The Remainder of You
by Mistress Moitie
Summary: There were things he would have liked to do differently. Oneshot. Link/male!Sheik. Just a drabble!


The smile was infectious.

He never said much, but god dammit, those eyes and that curve of his mouth spoke volumes.

He'd stand there waiting, watching me. Eyes glowing, slight dimple showing in his right cheek.

He had a sense of humor. Not everyone noticed it, but I did.

To most, he was the epitome of bravery, serious business.

But he'd flash me that look and wave goodbye as he had entered those temples, and I'd watch him saunter through the entryway without looking back.

It was never a finality. I'd wait for him and he would always come out.

And he knew it.

He knew he was good.

He really didn't need me around. I served a purpose, yes, but was I really incremental in his saving of Hyrule?

He'd tell you yes, that I was.

I certainly made it go a little bit differently than the sages or the princess were expecting, at least.

I don't need to tell you about the moments when he'd stop me from leaving. You've all heard that a hundred times before. How I met him in the Temple of Time.

How I'd known from the first moment I looked at him.

But what most don't know about are the little moments. Those little moments that made me..

well.

It was just the two of us.

I'd watch him all the time even if I didn't make it apparent, and he would act like he didn't know I'd been following him, watching him.

That little expression of fake surprise he painted upon his face got me every time. But I played along with it. We pretended we hadn't seen each other in a long time. There was a lot of pretend.

After all, the princess was always watching.

But that playfulness was contagious.

The slight touches. Even though he meant them to be careful I knew from the way they felt that he had never wanted to let go. And even if he did, I knew from that smile that we'd meet again, and he would be happy to see me.

All those smiles that he missed, under that white cowl I wore. My eyes creased, my irises glowed. He knew he had gotten through to me. He never needed to see what was underneath it. He always knew. Even though he tried.

The moment he had come down from that beam of light from the sages, landed there on the marbled floor. When he saw me it wasn't just about gathering those medallions, saving Hyrule.

No..

and he told me this much later on. He told me,

"It's about you, too."

I didn't believe him at first.

But he'd grab me every time, spin me fast and hold me close. And even though he never said much and neither did I, we knew.

It was like an addiction I couldn't admit. At first, I didn't even know how to feel about it.

I came from a different place, different upbringing. But you know that. You've heard about the Sheikah and how we are. How we were. I don't need to reiterate that.

Those blue eyes were like a knife through my heart.

The first stab was the last.

At first I didn't think I could go through with it.

Reciting those lines when I wanted to say more.

And he knew it too. He'd watch me, let me finish.. knowing there were things I just couldn't say.

All he would do was smile. That smile I told you about.

The infectious one.

It would creep up my body, trigger muscles around my face. I'd fight to stop it from spreading.

It caused a lot of sleepless nights.

I was into him so much more than I was ever supposed to be.

And he was too.

There was always time for me. He had told me that.

With the weight of the world pressing down upon him, he had always found time.

Even if it were those little moments.

As I tell you this now, I regret not resolving the tension.

I imagine what it would have been like.

I regret not letting him kiss me. I regret not letting him touch me like we both wanted to.

And after all this, I'm still thinking about him. After I was supposed to have forgotten.. you know, after I'd been 'sent back and had my memories erased'. I never forgot him. Couldn't take his face from my mind no matter how hard she tried.

The part that hurts the most is that he wanted me too.

He had told me he wanted me to be brave as well. He had wanted to see my smile too, to never fear the cowl that graced my face. To remove it and live with him.

Live life, really is what he meant.

But I think he wanted me to live with him too.

I did my job, did it well. Very well. So well it infuriated him.

Every time he'd think he had broken me I came back stronger.

It's one of my regrets, now.

I wish I hadn't been so strong.

There is only one of him, I've realized that now the more I have thought about it.

He was unlike anyone else.

I wonder if he thinks about me too.

It's really all mundane now. I find myself zoning out, my eyes glossing over as I stare at nothing at all. My heart stutters every now and then when he crosses my mind.

I try really hard not to but he always finds his way in.

I don't know what my purpose was in the end, because I was born to aid the hero, unfeeling..

and I ended up falling for him.

What kind of mistake am I?

I've never told anyone this.

Not even the Princess Zelda.

Goddesses the lies I had to gloss over the thoughts in my head as she was a part of me.

It took a lot of strength.

I don't need to tell you how disappointed he was at the Temple of Time, when she revealed herself. And honestly if you don't know already I really don't feel like talking about it.

I'm not sure if he recovered.

A part of me wonders if he happily accepted the ocarina-induced amnesia. I'm fairly positive he wasn't exactly pleased to find out I 'didn't really exist'.

We still haven't found each other, you know. After all this time. This "second chance" the princess promised us all.

What a load of...

Do you think..

You know, I've thought about heading back into Hyrule but I've always stopped myself. I can't let myself look that weak.

He said there would always be time for me.

It was my fault it ran out.

Would he even remember me, now?

His hands had wrapped around my arms, my heart had strained wildly. I could hear all the Sheikah who had passed on before me screaming in anguish at all the rules I had been so close to breaking.

Had broken.

..and am still breaking.

I had tensed. I was terribly unfamiliar with contact of any sort that didn't require fighting.

And so I had pushed him hard. It was a customary reflex.

He fell backward, stunned.

I was horrified, internally, of course. Like a shove would have hurt the Hero of Time though, really. Silly when I think about it now.

"Come here," though, he had said on the grass in that still peculiar position.

And I had walked tentatively to him, stared down at him once I neared him. Did nothing besides fold my arms across my chest.

"Closer," he had said through a smile.

I can remember looking around cautiously before doing his bidding, as if anyone were around to shame me.

Once I had knelt beside him, he laid upon the grass fully, raised his arms above his head, relaxed.

"Are you hurt?" I had asked stupidly. Like hell he was.

"No," he had said, shook his head gently from side to side.

And he just laid there looking at me, and I had felt compelled for some reason to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes.

This gesture as I understand it now meant so much more than I had realized then.

That warning signal of tangible electric energy that had coursed through me when he had touched me was still there even when I had made the cognitive choice to touch him myself.

And he knew that, too.

He was giving me the choice. That was what it was.

My tentative touches hadn't stopped there. I explored him, and really, I had created the mess myself by doing so. I certainly didn't have to.. do what I did.

You have a saying for something like this? 'Opening a can of worms'?

In Sheikah we have a much more, ah.. masochistic way of saying it.

'It cannot be undone', if translated.

Well, needless to say.

One thing Link was very good at was finding weaknesses.

He was quiet, played dumb a lot of the time, but he was very perceptive. Surprising, really.

Princess Zelda was inside my head the whole time. "Sheik," she had said, "What are you.." If someone could be shook from the inside out, that was what it felt like. Tremors.

There had come a point where I could not pretend to her any longer. Could not hide what I wanted from her any longer.

I had thought for a while in the beginning that her emotions were controlling me. That she had wanted him and in turn that had made me want him too.

And in a way very unlike myself, realizing this and her resistance of it had made me want to do it even more.

Rebellious? ..Yes.

A big no-no.

I wasn't just a slave. Even though it had been bore into my brain since birth.

I could tell she felt such relief when we had finally been separated. She had her own body again, wasn't just a figment anymore trespassing in my head - but he had just stared at her in disbelief.

"No.."

"No, no no.." he had cried.

And that was the last I heard from him.

I had woken from the trance, my body in a prone meditative stance, teleported back to that dark, little room far away from everything that the princess and her own self had been hiding in for as long as I was out doing the job for her.

And all there was after that, was silence.

I had taken a deep breath of air. Like I had fainted for seven years.

My body was fully mine again and my mind was eerily quiet.

But I was missing something.

Something I've never gotten back.

I was the Last of the Sheikah because there were none, save Impa, alive still before me. And there were to be none after me. Not even myself.

I had been told I was 'reborn', if you will, to aid the hero. Like a test subject for the good of Hyrule.

Link and I were alike in ways, but most startlingly of all was that we both were freshly plucked. Groomed, nurtured by the sages.

Even though I had been trained, lived parts of my life that he wasn't able to, we both were just catalysts - bodies infused with a selfish purpose, yet not one of our own.

We really, deep down, had no idea who we really were.

And when it's just the two of you amidst a world that needs saving..

you find out about yourselves from one another.

Those discoveries were what propelled us to each other. In the dark nights with the wolfos howling and the stars twinkling down on the expansive Hyrule Field, no one in sight, he'd sleep on the grass and I in a tree, and we'd talk softly about nothing at all until it became something more.

He desperately wanted to believe I had all the answers.

I wanted to tell him that I did.

But all I really knew were the lines that were given to me and the explicit detail of 'guiding the hero at whatever cost'.

What I found out came later, and when I finally knew it was too late to tell him.

It was too late for me, as well.

I'll leave you with one last thought, as the candle beside me burns to its end and its light provides no more for me to write with.

If you ever see him, golden-haired with the brightest blue eyes you have ever seen, with an infectious smile that makes your whole being feel better, then tell him..

tell Link that I loved him.

and that I still do.


End file.
